The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventor, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Mobile communication has become a significant contributor in today's economic growth largely due to the phenomenal success of mobile smart phones. At least part of this success are the technology advances in semiconductor manufacturing processes specifically targeted towards micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS). These developments acted as catalysts to miniaturize components while delivering enhanced performance, resulting in smaller and smarter phones. As such, consumers rapidly adopted phones with expanded feature sets such as health monitoring, music, gaming etc. embedded within the smart phone. This downward spiraling phenomenon has caused the smart phone users to expect the best acoustic experience with highest quality and reliability from the smallest of devices and at low cost.
The acoustic experience while using the smart phone depends upon the performance of its acoustic components, such as the microphone, receiver and speaker. There is a need to improve the performance of these devices while maintaining high quality, low cost, and small device size. All these characteristics are the hall mark of the MEMS semiconductor technology.
The semiconductor microphone (“silicon microphone”) has displaced the electret condenser microphone and established itself as the top candidate of choice by smart phone manufacturers due to high performing characteristics with surface mount packaging flexibility at semiconductor level reliability. Unfortunately, such a solution does not exist for speakers and receivers. For these components, smart phones still utilize large devices that restrict design flexibility and that do not offer surface-mount options. These larger devices also reduce manufacturing efficiency and raise manufacturing costs.